Pale Bewitching Butterfly

"Hide!"

The next instant, Hua Yin made his decision.

He shouted as he doubled back, practically dragging Lin Qingqiu behind a huge, bulging pile of construction-waste bags by the roadside.

"Hua Yin, run! Leave me!"

"Don't make a sound! Don't come out!"

Fear threaded through the boy's voice, along with a hint of reassurance.

His panicked eyes flashed as though to say, Trust me. I'll handle this.

Then he snatched up his fallen schoolbag and turned to face the monster emerging from the alley, now almost upon them.

Hua Yin's heart hammered as if it might burst. Fear numbed his limbs, but something deeper, an almost instinctive urge, overwhelmed it.

It was courage.

Lin Qingqiu had been kind to him at school. A girl like her shouldn't die here. He was different. He had no one left to worry about—and perhaps no one worried about him.

He couldn't lead the monster to Lin Qingqiu's hiding place.

She deserved to live.

"Fuck you, you bastard! I'm right here!"

Hua Yin swung his schoolbag with all his strength and shouted, then ran into another alley opposite the entrance, narrower and deeper than the first.

The Jade-Bladed Mantis took the bait.

Its rudimentary intelligence wasn't enough to wonder where the other person had gone. Its crimson gaze locked onto the running, shouting human. With a sweep of its scythes, it gave chase.

Behind the heap of large garbage bags, Lin Qingqiu listened as the sounds of pursuit faded.

Whether from fear or the pain in her knee, she couldn't tell. She clamped her slender hands over her mouth, afraid to make the slightest sound, afraid even to breathe.

The boy who always treated others with indifference had risked his life to give her a chance to survive.

She couldn't let Hua Yin's sacrifice go to waste.

In the darkness, tears filled the girl's beautiful eyes. She closed them in despair, and two clear trails ran down her cheeks.

After waiting a while, when she was certain it was safe, Lin Qingqiu remembered what she had to do. She hurriedly pulled out her phone and called the Special Affairs Bureau's emergency number.

Elsewhere, Hua Yin ran for his life. Breathing so hard for so long had set his lungs on fire.

He headed for narrow alleys full of turns, trying to shake the monster.

But the mantis was faster and more agile than he could have imagined. It caught up after every turn, its scythes slicing past his back again and again, leaving a bone-deep chill in their wake.

At last, he rushed into an alley that ended at a brick wall nearly three meters high.

A dead end.

Hua Yin skidded to a halt. He turned with his back against the cold wall, his chest heaving.

The Jade-Bladed Mantis strolled into the alley and blocked the only way out.

It seemed to savor its prey's despair. Its scythes scraped together with a delighted clicking sound.

There was nowhere left to run.

Hua Yin stared at the monster, his fingers tightening around the strap of his schoolbag.

Inside were his books, and that album...

It was the last gift he had wanted to give the person called his mother.

His throat went dry. Despair washed over his reason like an icy tide.

Am I going to die here?

Die in a filthy dead-end alley without even getting one last meal, without ever getting to say the words he'd held back for so long: You don't want me anymore? Fine. I don't want you either.

A fierce, violent rage surged through him.

I'm dead either way!

"Aah!"

Hua Yin let out an inhuman roar and swung his heavy schoolbag at the Jade-Bladed Mantis with everything he had!

He put his whole body into the blow, sending a faint rush of air ahead of it.

Smack!

The Jade-Bladed Mantis casually raised one scythe-like forelimb and batted the bag aside as if swatting a fly.

The schoolbag flew into the wall. Its clasp snapped, spilling books and stationery across the ground.

The carefully wrapped hardcover butterfly specimen album tumbled out with them.

The album struck the ground. Its brown-paper wrapping fell away, revealing its delicate cover.

Hua Yin's pupils contracted.

The Jade-Bladed Mantis showed no interest in the scattered belongings. Its gaze stayed fixed on Hua Yin. It wanted only to eat him.

It stepped forward and slowly spread the scythes on its arms to their full width. Their eerie green glow was painfully bright in the dim alley.

The next instant, the blades flashed!

They moved so fast they left only a green afterimage as they thrust straight at Hua Yin's chest!

There was enough force behind them to slice easily through brick and stone!

Hua Yin instinctively reached for something to block the strike. The butterfly album was closest.

He grabbed it and held it in front of himself.

Thk—!

A faint sound came from the blade piercing cardboard and glass.

Hua Yin went rigid and looked down.

A sharp, eerie-green blade tip coated in strange slime protruded from the back of the butterfly specimen album.

Then the sensation in his body told him the rest: after piercing the album, the blade had driven deep into his chest.

The pain arrived half a second late, then crashed over him like a tsunami.

"Urgh..."

Hua Yin opened his mouth, but no complete sound came out.

In the Jade-Bladed Mantis's compound eyes, he saw his own contorted face reflected.

The Jade-Bladed Mantis seemed to lose patience. It whipped its scythe aside!

Crash—!

The violent force tore the specimen album to shreds!

The tough hardcover, thin panes of glass, tissue paper holding the butterflies in place, and the specimens he had so carefully collected, pressed, and preserved...

In an instant, everything burst into countless fragments. They fluttered through the dim alley like a heartbreakingly beautiful rain of butterflies.

The immense force hurled Hua Yin backward. He slammed into the brick wall behind him and slid to the ground.

He lay on his back, his vision wavering and blurring.

A terrible hollow had been carved into his chest. Blood gushed out, quickly soaking his faded school uniform red and spreading across the ground in a thick, dark pool.

Cold. A cold unlike anything he had ever felt spread from the wound through every limb and bone, swallowing his warmth and consciousness.

Am I dying...

Maybe that's fine...

No one wants me alive anyway...

Mom...

Can you see these butterflies...

They're the last thing...

I wanted to give you...

Once I gave them to you, I wouldn't be your son anymore...

Memories began to flash through Hua Yin's mind as death approached, countless moments of heartache he had never wanted to revisit.

There was the happiness of his childhood, then his parents' arguments and his mother's departing figure. Finally came his father, who had fallen from scaffolding while trying to give him a better life, lying hunched and gaunt in a hospital bed.

Alongside those memories came the laughter and mockery of countless people around him. Young voices and grown ones all said the same thing: a motherless child, a monster who'd gotten his father killed.

The world had not been kind to him. His heart was full of sorrow, but he had no one to tell, so in the end he had put on a mask of indifference.

Then the shattered butterfly specimens began to fall. Bright wings, delicate antennae, and tiny bodies drifted down among shards of glass and scraps of paper.

It was as though heaven had pitied him for the first time and sent him a snowfall of regret.

Many of those strange snowflakes landed on Hua Yin's body and face, and around the terrible wound still pouring blood.

Some fragments fell directly into the torn flesh.

Then something changed.

The bloodstained butterfly fragments suddenly glowed with a soft, pale light, as if life had been breathed into them.

They began to "melt"—not by burning or corroding, but through a stranger process that transformed solid matter directly into pure motes of light.

One mote. Then two...

Countless pale motes emerged from the fragments. They drifted as though drawn by an unseen force, gathering at the terrible hollow in Hua Yin's chest. Then...

They sank into it.

"Aargh—!"

Hua Yin's eyes flew wide open, and his body convulsed beyond his control.

It wasn't pain. It was a feeling he couldn't describe: emptiness, absolute emptiness!

As though his body had become a bottomless black hole, ravenous for something to fill it!

At the same time, the surrounding air seemed to tremble.

The unseen, intangible spiritual energy that existed throughout the world began to flow toward Hua Yin, surging into his body!

At first, the current was no stronger than a breeze. Then it grew until a small, invisible vortex formed around him!

Pale motes of light and an unseen torrent of spiritual energy poured together into his ruined body.

At the edges of the ghastly hole in his chest, flesh began to writhe, grow, and knit together at an impossible speed!

Severed blood vessels reconnected. Shattered bones re-formed. Torn organs regenerated...

The whole process was silent and swift.

The Jade-Bladed Mantis seemed stunned by the sudden change. It stood with its bloodied scythes raised, its crimson compound eyes fixed uncertainly on the human wrapped in pale motes of light.

Within a few breaths, the wound in Hua Yin's chest vanished. His skin was smooth again. Only the hole in his clothes and the blood around it proved that the devastating injury had been real.

The pale motes disappeared completely into his body.

The torrent of spiritual energy gradually subsided.

Hua Yin lay motionless on the ground.

But his once-unfocused eyes slowly sharpened. Deep within them, a cold, pale glimmer quietly kindled, like the bitterest star before dawn.

Information surfaced naturally in his mind, like a code unlocking:

[Ability awakened: Pale Bewitching Butterfly]

[Tier: S]

[Initial powers: Life Devouring, Wound Healing (self/contact only)]

[Status: Young Butterfly Awakening, ravenously hungry]

Hungry...

Yes. An unbearable hunger rose from the depths of his body, driving every cell.

It wasn't a hunger for food. It was a craving for...

Life force.

He slowly sat up, moving smoothly as though he had never been injured.

He raised a hand, palm upward, and willed it.

A speck of pale light gathered in his palm and unfurled into a translucent, illusory butterfly, its wing edges traced with patterns like cracked ice.

It gently beat its wings, scattering fine motes of light. Beautiful and still, it nevertheless radiated a devouring presence that made every living instinct tremble.

Hua Yin raised his head and looked at the Jade-Bladed Mantis, which still stood nearby in confusion.

His gaze was calm, even a little empty. But deep within it, that cold, pale glimmer was sharp as a knife.

The Jade-Bladed Mantis seemed to sense the threat. It gave a warning click and raised its scythes again, their eerie light flickering.

The corner of Hua Yin's mouth twitched ever so slightly.

He pushed himself off the ground and stood.

The Pale Bewitching Butterfly in his palm took flight and circled beside him.

"That hurt..."

He spoke softly, his voice hoarse and cold with murderous intent. "That really hurt."

The next instant, he spread his hands. Countless points of starlight gathered in his palms!

In a flash, countless pale butterfly phantoms formed there and poured out.

The Pale Bewitching Butterflies became a spectacular stream of pale light that slammed into the monster's oily-green body!

Deep in the alley, pale light collided with eerie-green blades once more.

This time, hunter and prey had quietly traded places.

"Bastard!"

"Come on!"

"Try to kill me again!"

The boy's voice rang through the silent alley, thick with fear, hurt, anger, and boundless fury.

Like a young tiger that had always kept its claws hidden, he roared his defiance at his cruel fate for the first time.